I grew up in a house without conflict. No one ever fought, no one ever yelled, and certainly, no one ever hit. There may have been disagreements, but they were quickly resolved and our house was restored to peace. Given that was my experience growing up, I assumed all family handled conflict in hushed, quiet ways. But then I visited a friend who taught me differently. I was staying with her family for a few days, and on a car ride to dinner, her mother and father started arguing and were quickly yelling at each other in the front seat. My eyes bulged and my whole body tensed up. I immediately thought, “This is the most horrible thing I have ever seen!” I surreptitiously glanced at my friend to see if she was equally horrified, but she just sat there like it was an everyday occurrence. But even more strange than the fight was how the family acted later. There was a bit of quiet after the yelling, but by the time we stopped for dinner, everyone was back to normal. I, however, could not manage to release the tension in my body, and my mind was racing. Are they okay? Is this normal? Will it happen again? How do I act now?

I remember after that visit feeling relieved and almost proud. Clearly my family had the better conflict management system. Clearly we were more in control of our emotions and cared for each other with tenderness and love. I let myself believe that lie until my parent’s divorce. My entire world view about conflict and family and love came apart. Suddenly my quiet house was not simply quiet. My quiet house was a conflict avoidant house. The lack of yelling in my house was not simply a lack of yelling, but was a stuffing of hurt and pain for the sake of pretend peace. Now, do not get me wrong. I am not suggested that you all go home and yell at your loved ones. What I am saying is that no matter what your experience of conflict has been – avoidance, dramatic confrontation, reasoned discussion through disagreement – we have all experienced conflict in our family.

All that is to say that nothing Jesus says about families should be shocking today. Most of us like the loving, caring, gentle Jesus the best. We like Jesus being hailed as the Prince of Peace, not hearing Jesus say, “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!”[i] That is not the version of Jesus we come to hear about on Sundays. That is not the version of Jesus we want to read about when our best friend is mad at us, our brother won’t talk to us, or our spouse is thinking about leaving. That is not the version of Jesus we want the preacher talking about on the Sunday we decided to bring our friend to church.

And normally, I would be right there with you in protest. I like the Prince of Peace who cares for the poor and downtrodden. I love the Jesus who tells me not to be afraid and not to worry, especially when the lilies of the field are so well tended by God. I adore the Jesus who forgives and unites all kinds of people into one. But all of my protest comes from being someone who used to be pretty conflict avoidant. That is, until I learned another way. I will always say that one of the greatest gifts of my time on Long Island was learning how to not only handle conflict, but to really appreciate conflict for all that conflict can do.

For those of you not familiar with the cultural dynamic of Long Island, several things are at play. First, Long Islanders have a different way of communicating. They are direct, incisive, and honest. For a Southerner, their style of communication can feel rude, but over time, said Southerner realizes that all that directness and ability to dive into conflict means you get everything out on the table. There is no listening for innuendo or passive aggressiveness. There are no cute phrases that sound nice, but really mean something entirely different. Instead, you know where people stand, and you go home quite clear about the varying viewpoints. Of course, that style of communication does not always feel good. If you have sensitive feelings about criticism, your feelings can and will get hurt. If you get uncomfortable with heated arguments, you will be challenged to stay calm. If you prefer niceness over brutal honesty – well, you probably should not live on Long Island.

But here is what I learned and came to love about the beautiful people of Long Island. They taught me how to listen, even if all I wanted to do was flee the room. They taught me how to sit through criticism instead of getting defensive. They taught me how to see conflict not as the ultimate evil, but instead as a critical key to transformation, reconciliation, and restoration.

That is at the heart of Jesus’ message today. Of course Jesus says that he is going to divide fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, and in-laws against one another. What Jesus is teaching about is a radical reordering of the world.[ii] We heard that proclamation from his mother’s mouth as she sang out the words of the Magnificat earlier in Luke’s gospel, “He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”[iii] Mary was not just talking about the enemy Rome. Many of the Israelites themselves were proud, powerful, and rich. We in the modern world are the proud, powerful, and rich. And to us, Jesus shouts, “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!”

The good news is that Jesus is not telling us he wants us to fight. He is not encouraging violence or abuse, or even neglect or pain. Jesus is simply telling us that his message is going to upset the status quo. And as people who benefit from the status quo, we are going to have to face our demons and look at our brothers and sisters who are in need and take real stock of ourselves and our lives. And when we start upsetting the status quo – when we start making women equal to men, when we start treating minorities with dignity and respect, when we start empowering the poor thrive and turn their lives around, we will have friends and family who push back. We will have people who try to convince us to protect our power rather than share our power. We will have family who walk away because they cannot face the truth. All we have to do is look at the church – look at the hundreds of denominations who could not agree on whom could be baptized, what Eucharist means, and whom can be ordained or married. We are a family divided because Jesus’ love is so revolutionary that we will be divided about how to define his love, how to share his love, and how receive his love. Jesus does not want us to fight. But he knows that if we are going to authentically live into the Gospel life, we are going to deal with conflict and we are going to be divided.[iv]

But that is also why Jesus went all the way to the cross. His death was an effort to transform and redeem our conflict and to help us live fully into the people of peace and love we are invited to be in him. Jesus knows that we will have to fight. But he also knows that if we are willing to enter into conflict with an open mind, with listening ears, and a discerning heart, we will become a people who do not avoid conflict, but understand conflict as the purifying fire that burns away the mess of life and leaves behind the fertile ground for creating something new and holy.[v] So yes, Jesus is still the Prince of Peace, who brings peace upon earth. But the path there is not a smooth, straight, simple path. The path there will take us through conflict, tension, and pain. But the peace that awaits on the other side is more glorious than any community that will sit through passive aggressive avoidance just to maintain a false sense of security.

And just in case you are already feeling weary, wondering where you can muster the strength to survive such a rocky path, our letter to the Hebrews today gives us a clue, “Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith…”[vi] That group of people you are going to be in conflict with – whether your biological family, or the crazy family you selected as your church home – is the same group of people who have left us an example of how to work our way through conflict. They have shown us how to survive the race toward peace and reconciliation, reminding us that Jesus is the pioneer and perfecter who gets us there. We will not get there avoiding conflict. But we will get there together, holding hands when we disagree, loving each other when we say helpful but painful truths, and rejoicing when we push through to the side of reconciliation, renewal, and rebirth. Amen.

I have heard the argument many times before. When people see conflict, poor behavior, and ugliness in the Church, the complaint is always the same. People feel like they see enough ugliness in the world, at work, at school, or even at home. When they come to Church they just want to be around people who love each other, who never fight, and who are always on their best, most loving, supportive behavior. Many imagine that the Church should be a conflict-free zone of love and joy; full of those who love the Lord, love one another, and love every person who walks through those doors. We want an escape from the world when we come to Church – not more of the same.

And so, in order to create this magical conflict-free Church, we start engaging in behaviors that avoid immediate conflict, but probably make things a lot worse. Instead of dealing with conflict directly, when we feel wronged by someone, we just talk about them behind their back. Or, when someone sins against us, instead of approaching the problem with the person, we just call a bunch of people in the church to complain about them. Or if we are feeling wronged by someone, instead of talking to them one-on-one, we just send them a nasty email, copy the clergy, and, while we are at it, we CC the bishop. Or if all else fails, when someone does us wrong, we don’t say anything: we just avoid them; un-friend them on Facebook; and, if we cannot avoid them on Sundays, then we just leave the church altogether.[i]

Part of the reason we engage in these behaviors that usually make the conflict worse is because the alternative is downright scary. We hear Jesus’ instruction manual for dealing with conflict in the church in Matthew’s gospel and we panic. First of all, Jesus’ instructions force us to admit that we will have to deal with conflict within the Church. This premise totally dismantles our dream of the loving, conflict-free Church. And we are not sure we are ready to let go of that dream. But secondly, if we can let go of our tight grasp on our conflict-free Church dream, we sure as heck do not want to follow Jesus’ instructions. Going to someone directly to talk about how someone has sinned against us scares most of us to death. We are not sure what to say and we are not sure how what we say will be received. And if we somehow manage to get over our fears and the person rejects us, we cannot imagine taking one or two others with us to approach the offender again. That sounds way too much like an intervention, and we worry that the number of people in the room will only escalate things. And since we can barely imagine taking one or two other parishioners along with us, we find the idea of bringing the offence before the entire parish unfathomable. Jesus must be out of his mind if he thinks we are going to parade our personal business in front of the whole church.

I served in a parish once that went through a major conflict. A parishioner who had been working with the youth group had developed some serious boundary issues which came to a crisis point. After receiving complaints from several parishioners, the rector called the person-in-question into his office. That one-on-one meeting did not go so well. Rumors started to fly, and the offender’s version of the conversation was quite different from the rector’s version. Eventually, others had to be brought into the conversation. The whole issue took about a year to resolve, and the offender was so angry that he eventually left the church and many other parishioners were hurt and frustrated along the way.

Part of the challenge is that using Jesus’ model for conflict resolution is not as simple as the model sounds. Meeting one-on-one can go horribly wrong, as the meeting with my old rector went wrong. And having a meeting with three or four people can also go horribly wrong – the offender can feel attacked, confidentiality can be difficult to keep, and rumors can start to spread. And sharing an individual offense with the entire parish is difficult in our litigious society. Charges of slander and libel are much too easy to file.

The good news is that I do not think the specifics of Jesus’ conflict resolution plan really matter – at least not in the strictest sense.[ii] What is more important is that this passage from Matthew does several critical things. First, this passage debunks the notion that the Church will ever be conflict-free. That this passage exists at all is evidence that conflict is a natural, unavoidable part of life, even life in the church.[iii] I know that may sound like bad news to some of us, but actually the reality that conflict is unavoidable opens the door to the second good part of this passage. In addition to helping us see the inevitability of conflict, this passage also reminds us that there are healthy ways to deal with conflict. Though we may not choose Jesus’ exact method, there are ways to encourage reconciliation over back-stabbing and gossip. And those reconciling methods are healthy for the offender, the victim, and the community as a whole. Jesus is not worried about “whether or not we fight, disagree, or wound one another, but how we go about addressing and resolving those issues.”[iv]

Finally, Jesus reminds us that God is with us even in our ugly moments of conflict. Jesus says, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” We often jokingly quote this passage when we are having low church attendance. But what Jesus means when he says these words is that when two or three are gathered in resolving conflict, Jesus is there in their midst. I cannot imagine a more assuring word from Jesus today.

I once knew a couple who were married for 55 years. One day I asked the wife what their secret was. She told me several things, but one of them stuck. She said that if either of them was disciplining the children and the other parent disagreed with their decision, they never questioned the decision in front of the children. Later that night, they might talk about their disagreement, but they always supported one another in the heat of the moment. I remember thinking that their practice necessitated respect, biting one’s tongue, and a humble love that was free from pride. All of that was not visible through the good stuff of their marriage, but instead through the hard stuff of their marriage.

Now I know some of you are going to go home disappointed today. Your dream of Church being a conflict-free love fest is getting shattered today. You may have been hoping after hearing Paul talk about love today that we could all just sing, “They Will Know We Are Christians by Our Love,” and walk out of here on a cloud. Truthfully, having people see how we love each other and being able to recognize our Christian identity through our love is wonderful. But equally wonderful today would be if we could sing, “They Will Know We Are Christians by How We Fight.”

In a few moments, we will do a few things that mark our Christian identity. We will confess our sins, ask for healing, and pass the peace. These are all steps toward reconciliation with God, with ourselves, and with one another. Perhaps you have been experiencing conflict here in our church community, at home, or at work. Now is your chance to reconcile that conflict, and live into what being a person of faith means. There is no way to avoid the fact that Christians fight, disagree, and argue. But how we fight means much more than that we fight. The church invites us to be a people committed to reconciliation, knowing that where two or three are gathered in conflict together, Christ is in the midst of us. Amen.

[i] Rick Morley, “Before You Unfriend – Matthew 18:15-20,” August 23, 2011, as found at http://www.rickmorley. com/ archives/803?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=proper18agospel on September 4, 2014.